CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JAI
I got off the train and followed my master up a short hill, then around a corner.
We were going to visit a man called Zeke, who was apparently a good friend of my master.
Kade had stayed home today, having woken up this morning with severe bruising all down his right side, and a mild fever as well.
My master had made sure he took a dose of both the painkillers and the antibiotics that the doctor had given him, and then told him he was free to go back to bed, if he wanted to.
I, on the other hand, was being dragged across the city, to have a tea party with my master’s friend and his dimari.
I wasn’t looking forward to being forced to socialise with one of my own kind.
I’d long ago learned that I had little in common with other dimari.
A significant portion of them had stopped trying to talk to me after I was chosen as a combat specialist. We, along with pilots and nurses, were considered the most intelligent of the dimari, and those with lesser specialties, like domestic servants, were resentful of the extra attention we got.
And then, when I’d been chosen to learn an extra skill as well, the few dimari who still spent time with me had given up.
Honestly, I didn’t blame them. I was too busy to pay much attention to them, and they were too intimidated by the cold, calculating way I began to assess the world.
A dimari answered the door when we arrived, his scales a pale, sky blue. He grinned when he saw who it was. “Hello, Commander,” he greeted my master, with clear enthusiasm. “It’s so good to see you again. Please, come in. Would you like some tea or coffee?”
“A herbal tea, please,” my master said. “And for Jai. This is Jai, by the way,” he introduced me. “I assume Zeke told you he would be coming with me. Jai, this is Dax.”
Dax beamed at me. “It’s so good to meet you,” he said.
“Kade was so kind to me when we first met. It’s always nice to meet another dimari.
Oh, and I’ve been talking to Rov as well,” he rambled on, as he waved us inside and closed the door.
“He’s the dimari who went to live with Lieutenant Drevarious.
It was so nice of Colonel Henderson to pick out a dimari for him.
I think he would have had a lot of trouble choosing one for himself.
And Rov is… Well, he said it’s a bit of a learning curve, to be honest. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the trauma side of it, but he’s reading all the notes I gave him, and he seems very eager to be helpful.
I’m giving him as much advice as I can. I realise that having a master with PTSD can be…
” He paused, then glanced bashfully at the other man who had come into the room; a human man with a similar physique to my own master. I assumed this was Zeke.
“An absolute fucking pain in the ass?” Zeke finished Dax’s sentence for him.
Dax did his best to look demure, but seemed to be fighting back a laugh at the same time.
“Challenging,” he finished his own sentence, far more politely than his master had.
Then he bowed his head to his master. “Please excuse me, sir. I’ll start preparing the tea. ”
He disappeared around the corner, into what I assumed was the kitchen.
My master and Zeke immediately moved further into the living room, my master sitting on the sofa, and Zeke in an arm chair.
This was the first social excursion I’d been on with my master, and I wasn’t sure what the protocol was.
Was I supposed to sit beside my master? Or stand?
Feeling uncomfortably conspicuous, I fell into an ‘at ease’ posture near the end of the sofa.
Thankfully, my master noticed and immediately patted the seat beside him. “Come and sit down. We don’t generally stand on formalities on Rendol 4. And dimari are expected to behave largely the same as their masters do. When we sit, you sit. When we eat, you eat, and so forth.”
The brief explanation was helpful, and so I sat down beside my master.
What followed was ten minutes of idle chat, detailing Zeke’s recent activities and a few more updates on the new dimari, while Dax brought in the tea and bustled about, making sure everyone had a cup.
Then he sat down on the arm of Zeke’s chair, since there wasn’t quite room for them both to squeeze into the seat itself.
Zeke immediately put his hand on Dax’s leg, and Dax smiled the quiet, satisfied smile of a man who was hopelessly in love with his master.
I glanced sideways at my own master, at the foot or so of space between us, and the way his hands were firmly placed in his own lap. I had to make an effort not to grind my teeth.
After a few more minutes of talking about nothing in particular, while everyone sipped their tea, my master sat up straighter. “Dax, Zeke was telling me about the herb garden you’ve been working on out the back. Would you mind showing me around?”
“Of course, sir,” Dax said, with a smile. He seemed to smile a hell of a lot.
My master stood up, but when I moved to follow him, he held up a hand. “We won’t be long. You can stay here and talk to Zeke for a bit.”
I could what? I knew nothing at all about Zeke, and I was hopeless at small talk.
A lot of erotic companions were trained in a variety of social skills, since they were expected to not only fulfill their master’s desires, but very often, to advertise themselves as a hireable sexual service.
Their job was to entertain, to entice, to seduce, and they typically had extensive social training to meet those goals.
I, on the other hand, had been taught very little in my role as erotic companion other than how to endure the most intense physical experiences and maintain a profound degree of stamina.
Conversation had never been part of the role.
But before I could get too flustered about my lack of social skills, I saw the way Zeke was watching me intently…
and I felt my gut churn as the situation suddenly made sense.
I’d been brought here as a ‘favour’ to my master’s friend, then.
It wasn’t uncommon for masters to pass their dimari around to have sex with their associates, whether that entailed a bribe for a business deal, a favour for a potential customer, or a gift for someone they genuinely liked.
But… Wait, that couldn’t be right. My master hadn’t ordered me to obey Zeke’s instructions. Which left me free – technically, at least – to refuse to participate in whatever sordid desires Zeke had. Surely my master was sharp enough to have realised that?
“Please don’t be concerned,” Zeke said, watching the play of emotions across my face. “It’s just an informal chat. Nothing more challenging than that.”
A chat? The news was not reassuring. A chat about what? And why? I’d met this man scarcely twenty minutes ago.
But short of chasing after my master, there was little else I could do, so I settled myself back into the sofa, attempting to look comfortable, and sipped my tea. My eyes didn’t leave Zeke the entire time.
“I’m not sure how much Aiden has told you about me,” Zeke said, after a few moments, looking entirely relaxed as he leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair.
“I’m a pilot in the Alliance military. Or I used to be a pilot, at least. I was sent on a mission a couple of years ago that went extremely badly.
My crew and I were captured by a brutal species from a distant sector.
We were tortured, a lot of us were killed, and I eventually managed to escape with just three of my teammates.
It took us a long time to recover from it, both physically and psychologically. ”
I felt myself tense as I listened to him. Death and torture were not the subjects for a ‘simple’ chat.
“A big part of my recovery was having Dax to help me. He’s a domestic servant, but I strongly suspect that his trainers didn’t really see the potential he had.
He didn’t fit properly into any of their neat little boxes, and they didn’t like his attitude, so they took the easy option by training him as a domestic servant.
“But the thing is, Dax is wonderfully intelligent. He thinks outside the square. He’s persistent in getting me to do things when I’m being stubborn about it. His trainers thought he was belligerent. He’s actually just too smart to follow basic orders when he can see a better way of doing things.
“But at the same time, Dax had some significant difficulties in adapting to life on Rendol 4. Alliance culture is very different from most of the cultures the dimari are taught about, and given that we don’t buy many dimari, the Eumadians don’t see it as worthwhile to train you all in our specific cultural quirks.
I’m guessing you’re wondering why Aiden brought you here today, and why you’re sitting here listening to me.
He’s concerned that you’re having the same problem as a lot of dimari, in that you don’t quite understand the way Alliance culture works.
But at the same time, a dimari can’t necessarily ask their master all the questions they have, for fear of being seen as rude or uncooperative.
So first and foremost, this is an opportunity for you to ask any questions you might have, or express any concerns. ”
The opportunity was presented as a kind, genial option; Zeke trying to help and my master doing me a favour by letting him.
But the truth was far darker. Zeke’s dimari had a bad attitude – or at least, he had done, when he’d first arrived.
I could see, even from the brief time I’d been with him, that Dax had improved dramatically, so that he now fawned over his master, as a good dimari was supposed to.